CDA Essentials 2017 • Volume 4 • Issue 6

20 | 2017 | Issue 8 N ews and E vents  How do you decide to use SDF rather than conventional treatment? SDF is effective when you’re trying to stabilize patients with multiple cavities as quickly as possible, and with very young children who have decay that has not progressed too far. For a very young child, we’re using this as an immediate interim treatment and this usually avoids sending a 2- or 3-year-old child to an O.R. potentially for general anesthetic to do treatment; we’re trying to divert these young patients by stabilizing them and making sure the decay doesn’t progress. If they’ve had any degree of pain because the decay has progressed too far in a tooth, SDF is not going to work. If an older child has a relatively small cavity on a permanent tooth, then we’re going to proceed to a full restoration.  What kind of impact will SDF have on access to care? For us, SDF is a game changer. It kills bacteria, hardens the decayed area and stops the decay process. Fluoride varnish will slow down the decay process, but SDF actually stops it. When SDF came into the market, I thought, “We need this, and we need it now.“ Being in community health practice is not like when I was in general practice; I see more patients in one day who are so affected by rampant decay than I saw in over 20 years. I think, for remote communities and the kids who live there, SDF could be life-changing. The challenge in remote communities and underserved communities will be the follow-up visits; we would have to stay in a community long enough to make sure that each child is seen 2–3 times over a few weeks, and would have to come back in 6 months and apply it again. a  ❶ Before: 25-year-old female with rampant decay and pain. Note tooth 33 has open decay. ➋ After: SDF plus glass ionomer applied on tooth 33.  ❸ Before: 30-year-old female with tooth 23 having open decay. ❹ After: Tooth 23 received SDF and glass ionomer material. If your front office staff have noticed an improvement in how quickly claims are sent, they’re not imagining it! Thanks to new technology connecting ITRANS to the TELUS Health network, claims can be sent 20 to 30 seconds faster than before the upgrade, which was implemented earlier this year. Sending claims is now faster Curious about the technology behind this improvement? Watch an interview with Geoff Valentine, CDA associate director, Practice Support: oasisdiscussions.ca/2017/07/13/itrans ❶ ❷ ❸ ❹